Umami Crisps

By Andrew Hunter

All this week, Special Fork bloggers are revealing what’s in their pantry, with tips for using pantry staples. To celebrate Pantry Week, Special Fork has teamed up with Zojirushi, the Japanese maker of top-quality kitchen appliances, to offer a fabulous sweepstakes prize: the 5.5-cup capacity Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer ($192 MSRP), which not only cooks rice flawlessly, but also steams foods and bakes cakes. Menu settings include: white/sushi, mixed, porridge, sweet, brown, cake, steam and quick cooking. Enter to win!

The joke about a chef’s refrigerator is it’s filled with condiments, but nothing normal to eat like fruits, vegetables or meat. This is because condiments make everything taste better and because many of us shop for the immediate meal ahead instead of doing a weekly plan.

This week is “What’s in Your Pantry?” week at Special Fork. All week long, we’re blogging about our go-to pantry staples … the essential items we can’t live without.

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A Pan Sauce for All Seasons

By Katie Barreira

What’s turkey without gravy? You would never chuck the succulent pan juices from a holiday roast, so why waste them any other time of year? A quick pan sauce is the easiest way to class-up a simple weeknight meal.

One of my biggest testing pet peeves is when a recipe calls for searing a protein (chicken, fish, steak…most especially steak) and then abandons the pan, never to be mentioned again. One can only assume that all those caramelized bits of flavor and schmaltzy fats are being fed to the kitchen sink.

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